DNG or Digital Negatives are imaging specifications that provide long-term storage for digital images that are in various proprietary formats. DNG’s were devised by Adobe to tackle the problem of the growing number of undocumented raw file formats that are produced each time a new digital camera is introduced into the market.

Owing to the compact format and open standard of DNG files, converting raw files into DNG format has numerous advantages. Open standard conveys that the file format specification is freely available to third-party developers. Therefore, programs other than Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom can read from and write DNG files. Moreover, DNG files tend to be smaller in size as compared to the original raw files.

Additionally, while using applications such as Lightroom, one can create photo merged panoramas or HDR images with files saved in DNG format. This helps retain the raw characteristics from the source images. However, converting raw files to DNG also has disadvantages.

To learn more about the ‘Copy as DNG’ feature on Lightroom and whether you should use it, click here. To learn about all the aspects of Lightroom and post-processing using Lightroom, sign up for our Digital Post-Processing Workshop in Bengaluru or Mumbai.

Interested in improving your skills?

Imparting photography knowledge that eventually increases our attention and love for various details of life on this planet is at the heart of everything we do at Toehold. If you are a photography enthusiast and are interested in learning photography methodically from our ace photographers, explore our Photography Workshops and other related courses at Toehold Academy, or if you want to harness your skills and get mentored by our team of extraordinary photographers on the field, in real-time on our Photography Tours to destinations across India and abroad, explore our Photography Travel offerings.

‍